


Salt water

by GalekhXigisi



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: "One-Sided Attraction", Bad Parent Maggie Tozier, Child Abuse, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Good Parent Wentworth Tozier, Heart-to-Heart, Heartache, Heartbreak, Homophobia, Injury, M/M, Mild Blood, Multi, No Beta, One-Sided Attraction, R + E + S, Richie Tozier Needs a Hug, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Supportive Wentworth Tozier, Trans Richie Tozier, Transphobia, he gets one tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 13:10:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21356770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalekhXigisi/pseuds/GalekhXigisi
Summary: Richie breaks down about a newfound relationship within his friends.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier & Wentworth Tozier
Kudos: 130





	Salt water

_ Don’t touch the other boys, Richie. Don’t, or they’ll know your secret. _

A sob rips from Richie’s throat, one that’s violent and burns like his lungs have been lit on fire with a match. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say he tasted blood from that cry, but he  _ does _ know better. He knows it’s from his busted lip, the same busted lip he bit through earlier today and now leaked all over the white porcelain sink that looked disgustingly similar to his own skin tone. He’s pale, too pale for it to be normal. Maybe he was batshit dehydrated, too? 

He could hear the insults know. They came from his mother, from his peers, from his friends, from a million different people that the fifteen-year-old never even wanted to listen to in the first place.

_ Beep beep, Trashmouth, _ looped in his mind, playing a thousand times over each second, burning its way into his skull, forever imprinted. 

_ Shut the fuck up, Richard. _

Hot water burns his too-cold fingers. He looked like a corpse, covered in bruises and bleeding from the mouth like someone who had just been killed, the body finally losing its warmth, sapped of its strength. He looks like those boys in the movies that his dad always called douche bags that would  _ fuck your girl  _ and  _ call you a faery if you tried to do anything about it right before dumbing her for some whore. _ He didn’t like them. They always were assholes with cliche stories. 

Tears mix with hot water, blood dribbling into the salted mix. He doesn’t even try to clean the wound, doesn’t try to clean the blood away. He has to shower anyway. He was already almost naked, blood smeared across his chest, across breasts that were too big and always made Richie feel sick when he saw them, forcing them down with a too-tight bra with bandages wrapped around it for extra support. 

_ My little Rosie, _ his mother would feign before his parents’ divorce, _ what had he done to you, my little flower? _

The divorce was inevitable. His mother was never kind when she was drunk, which had been what settled it in the end. Wentworth had come home to find Maggie with her hands around her son’s neck, screaming, _ You took my little Rosemary away from me! Give me my little Rosie back! _ There were still scars from her jewelry. It had tried into his skin, tearing it and cutting deep, leaving marks. Bruises and scars around his wrist came from similar events. He even still had his left wrist bandaged because she had pulled a knife on him just three days ago, visiting the home to get her things, drunk out of her mind. He doubts she’s in jail, no, Derry was never like that, but he at least knows he had a restraining order against the homicidal woman who was Hell-bent on killing the boy she once called her child. 

Wentworth wasn’t home now. He wouldn’t be for another day or two, fighting with legal bullshit that Richie simply didn’t understand, just like how he hadn’t exactly understood what the giant fuss about getting his name changed from Rosemary to Richard when he was young or why he was moving again since someone had  _ found out the Tozier secret. _

The sobs hurt. Then again, he’s not sure why it wouldn’t. He’s been crying for hours now. He had gotten home so long ago, so painfully long ago. He had broken down into sobs the instant he had shut the door, thankful that his Father had yet to return. How could he explain his feelings? He already knew the line, _ You can be a transvestite but not a fuckin’ faery, _ from his uncle the last time he had seen him, who had made sure to let Richie know that line. 

_ R + E + S _

It was carved into the kissing bridge, had been for two years now, but  _ now, _ it felt a million times tougher. He had watched Eddie and Stan walk into their little clubhouse hideaway with their fingers laced, announcing that they’re together,  _ officially. _ Richie would forever deny scribbling out the initials, but he had cut his hand in the process, so maybe it would scar and forever mark him with a permanent reminder of his own stupidity. 

_ Is it a childhood crush or first love, son, _ Wentworth had asked when he first heard Richie finally confess just the day after fighting Pennywise. Richie had broken down and sobbed in his father’s arms the instant he saw the man alone in the home, confessing his infraction with the two boys, not including the clown that would haunt his night terrors for years to come, even still a burden, not that anyone needed to know that. Wentworth always did his best to support the boy when he woke up screaming and sobbing. 

Richie hadn’t been able to answer, not until today, not until he had sat at the kissing bridge in the night’s chilly air with a cool knife pressed into the wood, carving out the letters that never seemed to fade. Now, his voice was shattered and he was practically screaming with his sobs, staring at the bloody mixture of dirty water he had created, glasses falling into the sink at some point. 

He falls apart in the bathroom, eventually taking a too-hot shower with the lights flipped off. When he goes to school the next day, no one questions anything when Richie says he fell off his bike and busted his lip. It wasn’t abnormal for the boy at the very least. 

When Wentworth finally enters the home two days after, he’s surprised that Richie falls apart in his arms once again, choking on his own spit and coughing through cries as he explains the situation with broken, stuttered words. His only question is, _ Why don’t you ask them both out? _

It takes hours for Richie to finally be able to respond, _ Because if they don’t like me, I’ll lose my best friends forever.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Feeling a little sad and thinking about the fact that Richie lost both of his best friends within 48 hours so came up with this messy little one-shot to deal. Grammarly says I have a friendly/joyful tone right now, so, yeet. 
> 
> Here's my Discord server in case you'd like to listen to me spew about my love for Richie, Stan, and Mike or just generally talk there. I love seeing y'all there!  
https://discord.gg/eGkwayy


End file.
